


household relations

by Gretahs



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: BB-8 is a corgi, F/M, M/M, Modern AU, Multi, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gretahs/pseuds/Gretahs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe has the sneaking suspicion that his dog is trying to set him up with his two neighbors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the couple from 12B

**Author's Note:**

> the modern au no one wanted

Poe usually works the night shift, so when he gets home at six AM he’s greeted at the door by BB-8, he refills the dog bowl, gets halfway through making a cup of coffee, and then passes out on the couch.

This time, though, he’s standing at the door, bag slung over one shoulder, staring down his dark, empty hallway at the place where his dog should be, but isn’t.

He’s really too tired for this, but BB-8’s legs are too short to make it up the stairs on his own, and he’s worried that he might’ve rolled down to the ground floor by accident, so he leans his bag against the counter, shuffles his keys in one hand, and heads back out to the hall. The lights are on and flickering, and  Mr D’an on the floor above hasn’t started his loud interpretation of  the _Indiana Jones_ theme song on his clarinet, so Poe should really, really be asleep right now.

Damn that corgi.

After circling around the floor and peering into the dingy elevator, unable to stop himself from aggressively stomping around in frustration, he’s debating knocking on all the doors to see if he has better luck, when 12B opens and the very pretty brunette sticks her head out. She looks frustratingly refreshed, and Poe knows he must look like a nightmare, so he tries a smile to distil the tension.

The mug of coffee in her hands sings a siren’s call.

“14B, right?” She asks. Her accent’s British, and she blinks at him, before shaking her head and walking towards him, raising her hand. “Sorry, I’m Rey.”

He takes it automatically. “Poe Dameron, 14B,” he says. “Sorry if I was making too much noise. I’m just… I’m looking for my dog.”

Rey blinks again, and then drops his hand to instead point at his chest. “So it _is_ your dog!”

“I… pardon?”

She smacks her forehead and then grabs his hand, pulling him forward back towards her apartment. Poe blames his exhaustion on not fighting it, instead of the way her fingers are warm and calloused, and that her grip is firm and solid. Her apartment is eclectic; a weird mixture of clutter and stark minimalism. The shelves are littered with paper flowers and tiny figurines and what looks like a variety of mechanical parts, but the floors and tables are clear, and there’s several neat rows of shoes just inside the front door, and the picture frames on the walls are like Tetris pieces, each carefully slotted into place.

BB-8 is sitting on a weathered green couch, tongue out of his mouth and looking obnoxiously pleased with himself. His tail begins to wag furiously as soon as Poe enters the room, and he struggles a bit before he manages to shift sideways and down to the floor, landing on his stumpy feet, and almost bouncing over to where they were standing in the doorway.

“I was looking all over for you,” Poe tells him, kneeling in front of him, “I thought you might’ve made your way downstairs and rolled into oncoming traffic.”

BB-8 doesn’t respond, and instead lies on his back for a tummy rub, moving from side to side, tail still flicking back and forth. Poe holds out for a minute and, feeling Rey’s eyes on him, sighs and gives in.

“I’m really sorry,” Rey says, “my boyfriend found him wandering around when he got home this morning, and we knew he’d broken out of someone’s apartment but we didn’t know who. I was going to go doorknocking later, or maybe put up posters.”

“It’s not your fault,” Poe reassures her, looking at her. And then he turns back to BB-8. “But it most certainly _is_ your fault.”

BB-8 barks, and licks his hand.

“Coffee?” Rey asks, when Poe stands, brushing his hands down his pants.

The thought was very tempting, but: “You’ve already babysat my dog, I can’t ask you to babysit me too,” he says. BB-8 whines. “You’ve been enough of a mooch for one morning,” he says firmly, “come on.”

But BB-8 plants himself on the floor, head on his paws, looking balefully up at Poe, and Rey uses the distraction to shove a cup into his hands and yes, this is what Poe has been missing.

“Stay,” Rey says, “really. Finn’s always saying we should be more social, and we don’t really know anyone on this floor yet, and we’ve been here for weeks.”

Poe lets her manoeuvre him back to the couch, and, pulling off his jacket, he sits amid a collection of patterned cushions. BB-8 lies down on his feet.

“Try to avoid the guy from 17B,” he advises. Fett’s temper is cold and eternal, and it pays to get on his bad side. Poe’s heard horror stories about a guy that Fett pushed into drying concrete.

“I heard from the landlady when we moved in,” Rey agrees, sitting across from him, nursing her mug in her hands. “Sounds like a nice guy.”

“About as nice as you get around here,” Poe says, and right on schedule D’an’s clarinet starts up and Rey winces. “Wow, he’s directly above you isn’t he?”

“He sure is,” Rey says, taking a long drink of coffee, “which is both a blessing and a curse in the morning, really. It always gets me up for work.” She looks at him. “I’m a mechanic. I work at a store a couple of blocks down, and my boss gets super anal when I show up late.”

“Sounds fun.” Commissioner Organa has never been overtly kind, but she takes care of her employees above all else. Honestly, Poe’s had a lot worse.

“About as fun as the clarinet,” Rey agrees, and there’s a particularly high pitched note that makes the hairs on the back of Poe’s neck stand on end. “I never want to see _Superman_ again.”

“I always thought it was _Indiana Jones_.”

They both sit in silence and the song continues, and now that Rey’s mentioned it, Poe’s having trouble differentiating one from the other. It might be the exhaustion.

He leans back into the couch, letting BB-8’s coarse fur brush against the thin line of bare skin between his boots and his jeans, and closes his eyes.

Poe really doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but honestly nothing that’s happened this morning has been in his control, and so he resting his head on one hand, and the empty coffee mug slips out of his fingers and onto the couch.

 

When he wakes, the sunlight falling from the window is at a different place on the rug, and there’s a foul taste in his mouth.

Somehow BB-8 has moved from the floor to his lap and is lying, feet up in the air, occasionally twitching, and someone has draped his jacket over his shoulders. There’s also a very attractive guy leaning against the kitchen island, a mug in one hand and staring at him, looking very amused, who has to be Rey’s boyfriend, Finn.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up,” he says, looking a little bashful, and Poe feels his cheeks heat. He stumbles upright, BB-8 falling from his lap with a whine, and nearly knocking his own cup to the floor, fumbling at it with one hand. “Whoa, I… I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“I’m the rude one,” Poe says, trying not to make eye contact. BB-8 is staring up at him, betrayed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Yeah, I figured,” says Finn, resting the mug on the counter and moving forward. “Rey says she found you walking around at six this morning, looking totally wiped.”

“The night shift does that,” Poe affirms. His keys are still in his pocket, and he runs a hand through his hair while he checks the time on his phone. It’s almost midday, meaning he’d crashed on Rey’s couch for more than five hours. He’ll buy them more coffee, as a thank you. It tasted about as cheap as his own, though his tends to come out with the consistency of sludge rather than anything drinkable.

Finn looks interested. “Hey, me too, at the ER. You?”

“Rescue,” Poe replies. “But I change stations a lot. And thanks,” he looks at BB-8, “I heard you found my dog this morning.”

“He was sitting in front of the elevator when I got home,” Finn says, “looking a little sad. I can never resist an animal in distress. I’m Finn, by the way.”

As if in response, BB-8 waddles over for a backrub.

“Poe,” says Poe.

A moment passes when Finn crouches, petting the dog with both hands, and Poe is left with his hands in his pockets, trying very hard to keep it together. He hasn’t slept in his own bed for a week, he reasons, and he’s going to spend the next twenty four hours unconscious. He’s just figuring out how to awkwardly excuse himself when Finn stands, ignoring BB-8 scrabbling at his legs, and says:

“Let me walk you to your apartment.”

“It’s just down the hall, I’ll be fine,” Poe insists, his stomach feeling weirdly tingly. “Really, you’ve done enough.”

“Rey made me promise,” Finn says, leading the way towards the door. “She was worried you might pass out again before you get the key in the lock.”

Poe isn’t entirely sure what to make of that.

His own apartment is largely empty, because Poe is rarely home, but cluttered because everything he _does_ own rarely makes it to the cupboard, and instead litters the table and the couch and the bench and the bed he doesn’t get to sleep in. While Rey and Finn’s apartment feels lived in, Poe’s has more of the “showroom that someone’s broken into and trashed” aesthetic. As he pushes the door open, he pulls his boots off, toes finding deep grooves at the back of each shoe with ease, and leaves them in a haphazard pile, out of the way. BB-8 bounces forward, lying down on a couch cushion he must have relocated at some point before his early morning excursion.

“It’s a bit messy,” Poe says, even though messy is a bit of an understatement, “I’m not usually home long enough to clean.”

Finn’s carefully inspecting one of the framed photos on the counter, one of his mom and her plane, before glancing around the room with a careful eye.

“I’ve definitely seen worse,” he says, “Rey, for instance. Worst hoarder I’ve ever met.”

Thinking back to their living room, and the juxtaposition between cleanliness and barely concealed clutter, Poe can believe it.

“I’d offer you coffee,” he says, “but honestly yours was a lot nicer than mine.”

Finn waves a hand. “It’s cool,” he says, “I think there’s an episode of _Come Dine with Me_ that I’m missing.”

He watches cooking shows and his girlfriend’s a really, really nice hoarder. This feels slightly surreal.

Poe sees Finn to the door.

“Come round for coffee again,” Finn says, turning to look at him.

“Sure, if it’s not too much trouble,” Poe says, even though he has every intention of taking him up on that offer. He waves until Finn’s out of sight, and then shuts the door with a bang, whirling around to look at his dog.

“What just happened?” Poe asks BB-8. “Did you plan this?”

He only gets a huff in reply, so he just walks to his bed, doesn’t even bother to shove the growing pile of clothes or remove his pants, and instead just faceplants straight onto the duvet.

He wants to sleep for a _week._

 

He sleeps for eighteen hours, and then he’s back on the job again.

His mother had worked in a variety of transport jobs but her heart had always belonged to flying, and she’d met his father during the Vietnam War. He’d been ground forces, and she’d been a flight nurse, and she was, as his father used to say: “a bird trapped on the ground.” She’d also been shot out of the sky less than ten years later, when she was flying in to give international aid.

Poe knows it scares his father in a quiet and constant way, in the same way he tenses when a plane takes off, while Poe presses his face against the glass, perfectly still, hearing the engine rumble beneath them. If he’d had a choice, he would’ve been a pilot, commercial or otherwise, or somehow gotten wealthy enough to afford one of his own. As it was, he had a license and that was it, and he was still stuck on the ground.

“You look exhausted,” Jess tells him as he’s pulling his uniform. He gives her a look.

“Maybe it’s because I am,” he says. He slept for much longer than normal, but he still feels drained and wobbly. Also, he might’ve lost his jacket, which he feels irrationally crabby about.

“Trouble with the missus?”

“You’re hilarious, Pava. _Really.”_

She gives him a toothy grin, and smacks his hat onto his head before walking out of the room. Poe stifles a yawn behind his hand and fumbles with his vest, strapping it on with his eyes half closed as he walks towards his car. It’s a Tuesday, which means Karé bought the coffee, and he takes it from her without looking, moving around to the driver’s side and sitting behind the wheel.

“You look terrible,” Karé says bluntly as he turns the key in the ignition. He doesn’t even bother to glare.

“You look lovely too,” he says drily. “Nice to see you, by the way.”

She snorts. “Seriously, Dameron. Have you been sleeping?”

“I wasn’t aware that you were my mother, Karé.”

“I wasn’t aware that you were so determined to dodge the question,” she cuts back, and then her face softens a little. “Poe, if this is about Muran again-”

“It’s not, and I slept for almost twenty hours last night,” Poe says, because thinking about Muran never helps with his driving. “Seriously, I’m fine. I just had to spend a lot of time yesterday looking for my dog.”

“The corgi? The one too round to walk?”

“His name is BB-8 and he’s beautiful,” Poe says defensively.

“You literally complain about him _all the time_ ,” Karé points out, sounding amused. “And turn here. We’re circling Dathomir tonight.”

Poe flicks on his indicators and makes a smooth left turn behind a white van. Once the road straightens out again, Karé clears her throat.

“The Captain said yesterday that there was increased First Order activity in your neighbourhood,” she says quietly. “Did you know?”

“Should I ask why you’re asking?”

“I just don’t want you to do anything stupid.”

The last time he’d done anything particularly stupid, he’d lost a member of his team and got a new job. He still hasn’t quite decided whether or not it was worth it.

He relaxes his grip on the steering wheel. “You can relax, Karé. I’m off next week, and the last thing I plan on doing is wasting my time going after the fake mob.”

“They’re not fake if they have guns and political power, genius,” Karé snaps back, but her voice sounds lighter again, and she moves to get a little more comfortable under the seat belt.

The First Order was a mob in the way that identifying them as an active militia operating in the middle of a city would be seen as very problematic. Poe’s first encounter with them was minor; when he was a sergeant with the Hosnian police he’d run into half a dozen of their Stormtroopers roughing up a few tenants in a building on the East Side. He’d followed procedure, cuffed them and brought them to the station, and not even five minutes later they were walking out the front door. One of them had sent Poe a particularly cruel grin as he’d pulled his white helmet over his head, and the group of motorcycles had pulled out of the curb as a group.

For his service to the city, Poe had gotten an official warning, and he knew from that point on he was being watched.

And the thing was, it didn’t stop: he saw more and more of them, always in those ridiculous bike helmets, always in a large group, always causing trouble. Once, he saw a squad car pulled over by about half a dozen of them, and neither of the officers did anything. They just sat, in silence, until they’d finished doing whatever it was they were doing, and had then driven off.

And then, and then, Muran.

Iolo’s voice crackles in on the radio. _“We have a situation near Hosnian Prime. Potential assault. I need at least two units, over.”_

Karé picks up the receiver. “Copied, Black Leader responding, over.”

Poe floors it, switching on the siren.

This is as close as he got to flying, and even though the traffic is always thick at this time of night he finds his way through the crowds, moving easily from one lane to another, eyes always on the road.

Hosnian Prime is a series of historical apartments of the same design as Poe’s, only much older and with staff paid to eradicate mould. As they pull up outside, Poe sees that Jess and Snap are already on the scene, and they’re trying very hard to keep several masked figures from jumping Iolo.

He’s moving out of the car before he even realises what he’s doing, ignoring Karé calling out behind him, as soon as the instantly recognisable white helmets come into view. There’s several dozen Stormtroopers standing in a loose semi-circle, a particularly tall, particularly shiny one standing in front of them. He can see quite clearly that they’re all armed, and he can see that whatever’s happened between them and Iolo is about to spiral out of control.

_“Hey!”_ Poe shouts, just as one of them snaps forward and delivers the first punch.

 

“Phasma said they were provoked.”

“Commissioner, _you know that’s bullshit_.”

Poe’s sitting in a very uncomfortable chair, watching as Leia Organa paces back and forth behind her desk, arms crossed with one hand at her chin. The shutters are drawn but some of the light leaks in from the all night burger place next door, casting long, vertical strips along the floor and back wall. Commissioner Organa is short only in stature; in presence and personality she takes up whole rooms by herself, and can be felt through walls. At the moment, her brow is creased heavily and she looks concerned.

“You know that we’re not supported by the Senate,” she says, “and things are only going to get worse between us if these situations keep spiralling out of control.”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, the First Order was _assaulting_ tenants without provocation. They were illegally entering apartments… they were all armed-”

“I wasn’t doubting your story, Captain,” she interjects, “I was just making an observation.”

There’s a silence as Organa closes her eyes and rubs the bridge of her nose.

“They’re going to make a move.”

“Ma’am?”

“You know that this is what they’ve been doing, their project for the last several months,” she says. “Breaking into multi-unit housing, both public and private.”

“Yes,” Poe says, “but I wasn’t sure… there’s been no major police involvement.”

“Of course there hasn’t,” Organa says, turning to the window and cracking the blind open. The sudden shot of light into the room is almost blinding, “because we have reason to believe that Snoke might be directly involved with them.”

Poe has to think, briefly, because ever since Muran he’s found the politics of the Senate exceptionally depressing and completely useless, and watching them debate about whether or not a bunch of murderers should run free makes him want to drink and drink and never stop.

“Snoke… he’s a member of the Housing Commission, right?” He asks. A greying, heavily scarred face comes to mind, permanently hunched over. “For the Starkiller project?”

Organa gives a short, sharp nod. “I’ve held my suspicions about Snoke’s involvement for years, ever since he first appeared on the radar. But since… since Sergeant Muran, we’ve seen him in direct contact with one of the First Order’s main players.” Then she looks at him, properly, and she just looks tired. About as tired as he feels. “We can’t do anything about this publicly.”

“But privately?” He asks.

“Privately, you have this week off,” Organa says, “I don’t want you getting involved in this latest nonsense, you know that they’ve been keeping tabs on you. I know you’re not stupid, Dameron, but I also know you’re impulsive, and you have a very set sense of right and wrong.”

“If I may, Commissioner, I’m right about this,” Poe says, “all the things they were doing, what we _caught_ them doing, they’re not legal if they have one person in the Senate.”

“I never said they had _one_ person, Captain,” Organa says, sitting down and clasping her hands together, “but that’s my problem, for now. Here’s what you’re going to do; you’re going to keep your head down this week. Walk your dog, hang out with friends, sleep because you look like you need it. Don’t do _anything_ to do with the First Order. If you see them, walk the other way. If they approach you, avoid them and _do not engage._ ”

“But-” He tries.

“ _Poe_.” He shuts up immediately. “I’m telling you to do this, to rest, because for one thing I don’t think you’ve had a sleep pattern in months.” She raises an eyebrow. “Seriously. And for another, there’s a chance we’re going to have to launch an independent investigation on who else might have allied themselves with the First Order in the Senate, and I’ll need everyone ready to work at their best ability.” Then she shoos him. “Now go home. You look like shit.”

“I…” Poe starts, then stops. Organa doesn’t like to breed affection, based on some personal issues that Poe isn’t going to ask about because it isn’t his place, but really that’s what she’s done. She looks nothing like Shara Bey, who at this point is nothing more than a smudge in Poe’s memory, but there’s that same feeling of warmth as he snaps a salute, and leaves the office.

 

On the way home, even though it’s a quarter to five in the morning, he orders take-out Chinese food because he’s feeling depressed and slightly sorry for himself, and BB-8 has a weakness for spring rolls.

As he’s walking up the stairs, helmet tucked under one arm and bag held in the other, he sees that someone’s stuck a bright pink sticky note to his front door. He gingerly peels it off. It’s decorated with tiny suns and written on the front in black sharpie are the words: _HI POE WE FOUND YOUR DOG AGAIN :D_

“Oh you are _shitting me_ ,” Poe says, yanking the door open so violently that it bounces against the wall. And, sure enough, the hallway is utterly devoid of corgi. He finds himself just standing there, staring at the rug until he sighs, letting himself go entirely boneless before standing straight. He carefully puts the helmet on the arm of the couch and pulls off his bag, but holds onto his takeout. If BB-8 proves to be as difficult as last time, he should be tempted with the possibility of spring rolls.

Not that Poe really has any intention of actually giving him any spring rolls.

He only knocks once before there’s a series of happy scratches and yips and the door opens to Finn’s smiling, if tired, face.

“Hey again,” says Finn. “Long time no see.”

“I’m so sorry,” Poe says, dangling the bag in front of BB-8’s nose to draw him out of the apartment. “I don’t know how he keeps getting out. I’ll get the lock replaced, or maybe install a child safety door.” BB-8 is pawing desperately at the plastic, noise twitching. “And you look exhausted, I didn’t mean to keep you up-”

 Finn shakes it off. “It’s fine,” he says, “really. It was a slow night, and Rey’s usually up by now anyway. It was no trouble.” Then he seems to pause, considering, before ducking his head, gesturing down the hall. “Want to come in?”

And Poe’s still kind of running on empty, and also he’s determined not to think about how their couch was a hundred times softer than his, and how he slept better in those five hours than he did in eighteen, but he shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says, backing off a bit, “I really… this is already too much.”

“Poe,” Finn says bluntly, “you look terrible, and I won’t sleep well knowing you’re sleeping on your crappy couch.” BB-8 gives him the puppy eyes.

“That stopped working after that time you threw up in my bag and tried to look innocent about it,” Poe tells him, but somehow he ends up inside anyway.

Rey’s hunched over the kitchen island on a stool, looking half-asleep and almost swallowed in a hoodie patterned with the _Jakku Starships_ logo. She’s holding a very large mug in both hands.

“Morning, Poe,” she says, voice surprisingly clear despite the hour. He does a little wave in return, and is almost knocked over when BB-8 tries to get at the spring rolls. “Excellent,” she says, shoving the papers aside. “You brought takeout. Takeout for breakfast. Excellent.”

Before Poe can get a word in edgewise, they’ve cleared the bench and have laid out bowls and forks and a very bent spoon, and he’s watching as Finn carefully distributes the sweet and sour pork evenly between the three of them. BB-8 makes a truly valiant effort to get onto Poe’s lap, but he gets pushed back to the floor with a dull whine.

Poe is too tired to feel sympathy, but sneaks him a spring roll anyway.

They eat in comfortable silence that Poe has only really known from people he’s served with. Once or twice, Finn will mention something to Rey, and they’ll both laugh, but he doesn’t feel excluded. It’s… nice.

“We’ve had a big job come in,” Rey says at one point. “A Corellian model, apparently. A real piece of garbage, and I’m at least ninety percent sure it’s stolen.” Finn nudges her in a very exaggerated manner and then jerks his head at Poe. Rey swallows. “Ah, I mean, I’m ninety percent sure it’s second hand.”

“Just between us,” Poe says past a mouthful of noodles, “I’m off duty right now. And even if I wasn’t, someone dealing in Corellian cars is not something I’d be particularly involved in.”

“Oh, so you think you’re too good for potentially illegal car dealership?” Rey asks teasingly.

“Yes,” Poe says, and feeds BB-8 another roll.

He falls into a slight doze once he’s finished with his food, and Rey starts to move around, getting ready. Poe stands next to Finn as they do the dishes, while BB-8 naps under the table, and Rey kisses Finn, and then leans over and kisses Poe on the cheek.

“Thanks for takeout breakfast,” she says, her voice warm, and then she’s out the door.

Poe has a list of things he’s been planning on doing during his break: changing the lock on his apartment, and maybe finally clearing his bed and buying a new mattress. His dad forwarded him a list of recipes his mom used to make, trying to force him to stop eating takeout, so he might finally use his tiny, barely functioning kitchenette. BB-8 probably needs a new bed; incentive to stop him from sleeping on the couch cushions. He needs to go home and sleep, and maybe take the Ambien tablets Jess had forced him into getting months ago.

But he stays, absentmindedly drying dishes, and listening to Finn’s running commentary on football, and how he and Rey wanted a dog but they didn’t feel like they’d been in the neighbourhood for long enough, and really they’d only just moved him.

“When did you move in?” Poe finds himself asking.

Finn freezes briefly, before squinting in thought. “It must have been… six months ago, now. You didn’t see us move in?”

Muran had probably just died, Poe thinks. “No, I was probably asleep,” he says instead. “You know me.”

Finn gives him a slow, happy smile that Poe doesn’t really understand. “Yeah,” he says, sounding happy, “I guess I kinda do.”

You met two days ago, Poe tells himself firmly, _pull yourself together._

Finn says something, and Poe snaps out of it. “Sorry?”

“Got anything planned over the next couple of days?” Finn repeats.

“I… no. I’m on break, actually,” Poe says. He isn’t really sure why he volunteers this situation, especially since he wanted to be alone in the first place. “For the next week.”

Finn nods, and pulls the plug out of the sink. The moment is broken by a loud gurgle, and Poe watches the swirl of soap suds and flecks of rice in the water.

“Would you want to… hang out, I guess?” Finn asks, sounding awkward. “Without the excuse of your dog, I mean. “ He holds up both hands. “And it’s totally cool if you don’t want to! We did just eat your food, and made you clean up.”

But he still looks hopeful, wringing the dishtowel between his fingers.

“Sure,” Poe says. “I’d like that.”

The smile he gets back, while small, is still blinding.

Poe would like to say that he and Finn spend the rest of the day doing something fulfilling, or maybe bonding over their shared masculine interests like small dogs and _Come Dine with Me_ , but instead, they end up on the couch, and at some point Finn turns on the Food Network. Poe lasts long enough to see half of a particularly violent episode of _Chopped,_ and then Finn’s head somehow ends up on his shoulder and BB-8 makes a pleased snuffling noise on the carpet, and he doesn’t think about how odd all this is.

He comes back to soft voices and what feels like a hand carding through his hair. Time drips past him, although unlike last time he doesn’t jerk violently back into wakefulness, and instead rises slowly, shifting against the warm weight against his side. Cracking one eye open, he sees that Rey is leaning over the back of the couch, eyes fixed on the television.

“What time is it?” He croaks.

She glances at her watch. “Just after one,” she says. “The completely legal Corellian job didn’t come through today, so I got let off early.”

“You have a really great couch,” Poe says, winking at her. Just like last time, even though his back feels a bit stiff and his left arm is asleep, he feels less drained than normal. Looking down, he sees that Finn has curled up around his left shoulder, one arm flung over his stomach, still breathing softly. Poe internally counts to ten, and breathes in a few times.

“You seem to keep ending up on it,” Rey says, but she’s smiling, and she moves to sit beside him, legs curled beneath her, but unlike Finn she carefully keeps distance between them. She holds out his phone. “You got a call earlier, from,” she looks at the screen, “’ _The Most Beautiful Lieutenant That I Don’t Deserve.’”_

Karé, then. He takes it from her, idly scrolling through his missed calls. She’s called him three times, and sent a text that says: _if ur alive dameron text me back :3_

“Sorry,” he says as he types out a response. “She’s one of the people I work with, and she tends to get a little protective.”

“Girlfriend?”

He starts. “…What?”

Rey turns a bit red, scratching at her cheek and not looking at him. “Sorry, invasive.”

Blinking at her, Poe says: “We’ve never-she’s got a girlfriend. We’ve never been involved.” Karé has been dating Jess for years, and really enjoys throwing it in Poe’s face.

Rey seems to relax a little, and even shift a little closer as she turns up the volume.

 

Poe finds himself awake at five AM and, with a lack of anything else to do, takes his dog for a walk.

“Walk” might be too strong a word; as much as BB-8 enjoys walking to find people to give him backrubs and scratches, he’s a born and bred indoor dog. Really, his main source of exercise is waddling down to the ground floor and taking a trip round the block before stopping to take a piss in the alley. Poe’s main source of exercise is then carrying BB-8 back up the stairs.

Because of the recent influx of BB-8-related early morning activity, it shouldn’t be too surprising that Poe finds himself woken up to soft paws against his arm, the only part of his body hanging off the couch, and thus in a very small dog’s reach.

“I’m on holiday, you know,” Poe says past a yawn, pulling on his boots and a shirt over his boxers. In the past couple of days, the temperatures have begun to spike, and the insulation in the building has never quite passed the DA inspection. BB-8, leadless, stands by the front door, tail wagging. He gives a soft bark. “Yeah, I know. Come on.”

Once in the hall, BB-8 makes a beeline for Rey and Finn’s apartment, to the point where Poe has to shove him towards the fire door with his foot.

“No more bothering the neighbours,” Poe says, “and besides, I think they want to spend time with me, not you.” BB-8 whines. “You can’t have everything, sorry.”

He’d stayed with Finn and Rey until late in the afternoon, when Finn had finally snorted awake and Poe had shuffled around a little in their neat kitchen, making toasted sandwiches on their unused skillet. It felt a little too much like the night after a date to be comfortable, and he had to keep his eyes firmly on the stove when Rey leaned in to give Finn a kiss. He hasn’t stayed the night anywhere since Muran, and even then that was a very quiet, unspoken thing until the end.

Pushing the door open, he winces against the rush of hot air and wipes a line of sweat off his forehead. Watching BB-8 go down stairs is always a funny experience, the worn concrete not designed for a round body and tiny legs. Instead, the dog takes the stairs one at a time in tiny jumps, body held at a downward diagonal, paws kept completely straight, and accompanied by tiny huffs. It’s the highlight of Poe’s morning so far.

It isn’t quite raining, but the sky is dark and overcast and cut with thin cracks of light, and the air is humid. At this hour, the streetlights are still on and the world is dark, and Poe stands, watching the white and orange shape more around slowly, sniffing around a trashcan and an empty gum wrapper. Normally he’d only just be getting off shift and driving home. Instead, his bike is parked at the curb, and he’s wearing his pyjamas, and the world is quiet.

The silence is lost at the sound of a sharp yap and he turns, seeing BB-8 effectively cornered by someone in black that he doesn’t recognise.

“Hey!” He calls, beginning to move forward. “Hey, leave my dog alone!”

The man turns, and every single warning from Organa is suddenly gone from his head because they’re very obviously from the First Order, a fact which becomes even more apparent when two Stormtroopers seem to materialise from behind a parked car. The idea that they’d be watching him enough come here and harass his dog, to _come to his house_ , makes his heartbeat pick up and his clenching his keys in his fist.

“You’re the cop,” says the man in black, their motorcycle helmet bringing out a strange robotic quality in their voice. When Poe gets to about two metres away one of the Stormtroopers walks forward and slams a heavy hand against his chest. “How interesting,” the person continues, not sounding the least bit interested.

Poe slaps the hand away and moves to walk around them, and gets a solid punch to the face.

He staggers backwards, and while he’s struggling to regain his equilibrium there are two firm grips on his upper arms and he’s being dragged backwards into the alley, where the building still casts a heavy shadow. He’s thrown to the ground as BB-8 begins to bark and he scrambles to his feet, fists raised, blood beginning to drip into his eye.

They’re blocking the only way out, and no one is around at this time of day, but it’s not like Poe is defenceless. Their leather bike gear is stiff and heavy and doesn’t allow movement, which impedes them at hand to hand. They got the jump on him because he was surprised, and he’s _not_ going to let it happen again. He furiously shakes his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears. _Don’t provoke them,_ says the Commissioner’s voice. _Don’t go after them, do not engage._

“You seem to keep getting involved,” says the man. “I wonder… is it coincidence?”

“Excuse me?” Poe says, trying to calm down, trying to keep a level head. He can’t risk jeopardising whatever Organa’s planning. “It’s just… the mask isn’t helping me understand you at all. What are you going for? Leather fetish Robocop?”

One of the Stormtroopers moves forward, maybe to give him another slap on the face or push him into a dumpster, but a single hand wave from the man in black stops them.

“You live here.” It’s not a question.

“All the Senators you keep blowing, I would’ve thought you’d’ve known that,” Poe says. This has the implication that they didn’t come here to hurt him, or even harass tenants. What was it Karé said? There’d been increased activity in the area. “Is that what you guys do now? Can’t wait till the cover of night so you sneak around apartment buildings at five AM?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have seen anyone… out of the ordinary?” The man asks, brushing down their leather duster. “Suspicious, maybe?”

“I’m looking at him,” Poe says bluntly, and then he’s on the ground, his stomach in knots. He manages to inhale before a kick to his side that he grabs on to, twisting until the Stormtrooper falls, knocking their helmet loose. He rolls backwards, using the momentum to rise to his feet, ready to push forward, looking up.

He’s got a gun pointed at his face.

“Careful,” says the man in black, sounding bored. “I’d really _hate_ for Commissioner Organa to lose another one of her little soldiers. Especially at such,” he cocks his head, considering, “ _trying times.”_

Despite the heat, Poe can feel goosebumps rising on his skin, and everything seems to slow. He keeps his eyes focused on the barrel.

“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” he says.

The gun is cocked with a click that sounds thunderous. “I doubt I will,” he’s told, and the man comes closer, until metal gently caresses his forehead.

For some reason, Poe can’t find himself panicking. Really, he’s more concerned that him dying is going to get linked back to Organa, and he’s going to spend his death causing even more trouble. The slightest bit of pressure sends him stumbling further into the alley, until his back is pressed against the leather jacket of a Stormtrooper.

“How easy it would be,” says the man, in black, “to kill you right now.”

_“Hey!”_ There’s a shout and an accompanying bark. The gun vanishes beneath the trenchcoat and Poe sees a short figure standing on the street, staring them down. BB-8 stands beside her, ears flat and teeth pulled back in a growl. Rey’s got a baseball bat in one hand, and her feet are bare. She looks _furious._ “Back off!”

The man in black holds his arms up in surrender as Poe is shoved away from the trooper, the two of them walking forward.

“We don’t want to cause a scene,” says the man in the same, emotionless monotone. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“I fucking doubt that,” Rey snaps, pointing the bat towards him threateningly.

The man’s whole body suddenly changes from trying to exude power to rippling with tension, and Poe watches as his fists clench, shoulders rising up. Rey, despite the height difference, still stares him down, holding her weapon in front of her, and remaining stationary until the man nods jerkily and he strides out of sight, moving quickly around the side of the building. She watches them go, before dropping the bat and sprinting towards him, BB-8 struggling to keep up.

Poe sways a little as she grabs his face in both hands, tilting him towards the light.

“Oh my god,” Rey says, sounding very pissed off. “What did they – what the _fuck_.”

“Rey,” Poe tries.

“Come on,” Rey says, grabbing his hand. It’s like the morning they met, only Poe’s mouth tastes of blood and he’s thinking about how nice the bare skin of Rey’s shoulders is, and his dog keeps crying at his feet. Also, everything keeps tilting, and his vision keeps going red. “Finn just got home, he’ll help you.”

_“Rey,”_ Poe says, as she almost drags him up the stairs. “Rey, I need to call-”

“What the fuck,” says Finn, opening the door eyes half closed, after Rey spends ten seconds pounding furiously. His eyes open wide at the sight of Poe. _“What the fuck?!”_

“I heard BB-8 barking, and I go downstairs to see these three lunatics kicking the shit of him in the alley,” Rey says, pacing the room furiously as Finn disappears down the hall. “I can’t believe- what were they _doing?”_

“Rey,” Poe says, “Rey, I really need to call my- _dammit._ ” Finn has reappeared with a medical kit and sponges against the side of his head with a cotton ball soaked with spirits.

“Sorry,” Finn says, softening his touch.

Rey kneels in front of him, and he must look bad because her face twists. “Poe, why did they attack you?”

“Guys,” Poe says, trying to regain control of the situation, “guys, it’s fine. But I need to-“

“Finn, they were First Order.” And the hand probing at the cut about his eye freezes, and Poe looks up to see Finn’s face in an expression of what can only be described as _terror_. Turning back to look at Rey, he sees her mouth is set in a grim line.

“What- you guys know the First Order?” Poe asks.

Finn swallows loudly, moving around to look through the kit with shaking hands.

“We know _of_ them,” he says in a voice dripping with false bravado. “We know what they can do, what they’ve done.”

“What were they after?” Rey says urgently. “I know what they’ve been doing to Hosnian Prime. Were they going to…?” She breaks off. The two of them have become twitchy and nervous, and its entirely that the reason they both moved in the first place was because they might’ve been affected by the mob in some way.

“I don’t know what they were after,” Poe says, “but they recognised me. I told you I work in Rescue, and we’re the only people really trying to combat what they’re doing. I think they thought they might get something about Commissioner Organa out of me, or maybe it was a scare tactic.”

“That guy had a _gun on you_ and you weren’t fighting back!” Rey snaps at him, waving a hand. “Your knuckles aren’t bruised, which means you just stood there and took it.”

“I’m not allowed to interfere,” Poe says. His face is starting to throb and he knows his stomach is probably a mess of bruises, which is another thing to look forward to. There’s wetness on his bare ankle, and he looks down to see BB-8 gazing up at him, distressed. He runs a hand over his ears, scratching under the dogs chin.

“Not allowed – _you’re not allowed to interfere?”_ Rey says, sounding incredulous.

“It’s probably for the best,” Finn says at the same time. Poe doesn’t need to look up to know she’s frowning at him. “The First Order are known for being ruthless and dodging law enforcement. They probably would have just pinned it on Poe and come back to finish the job later.”

“Which is why I _really_ need to call my boss,” Poe insists, grabbing for his phone. The corner of the screen is cracked from when he fell on the pavement, but brushes the tiny pricks of glass aside and holds it to his ear.

It rings for exactly two beats, then:

_“Organa.”_

“Commissioner, this is Dameron.”

There’s a loud sigh, and Poe can imagine her holding her head in her hands.

_“You’re supposed to be on break, Captain. It’s been less than twenty four hours.”_

“I know, ma’am. It’s just… you warned me about engaging with the First Order.”

He hears a shift, as though she sits up straighter.

_“Dameron,”_ she says, a warning tone in her voice.

“Ma’am, they assaulted me outside my apartment building this morning,” Poe says, as Finn deftly begins to stitch his face back together. The pain stings but cuts through the haze, and he tightens his grip on the chair. “Unprovoked. They were all armed.”

_“Can you ID them?”_

“No, they were all masked.”

_“How many?”_ She asks, sounding almost concerned.

“Three. Only two were Stormtroopers, though. The third was an unknown player.”

_“Can you describe what he was wearing?”_

Poe thinks back. “Um, tall? Wearing all black, a long coat. A helmet, obviously. It was doing something to his voice, too.”

There’s a pause as Organa seems to think it over _. “Sounds like Kylo Ren.”_

“Ren?” Poe asks, and suddenly Rey’s hands are on his knees, holding tightly. He starts. _What?_ He mouths, but she just shakes her head. “I’ve never heard of him.”

_“You wouldn’t’ve. He’s been underground until recently.”_ He hears another sigh, and the shuffling of papers _. “Listen, just… stay where you are. I’ll see Kun and Pava over to check up on you.”_

“I’m really fine, ma’am.”

_“Sure, Dameron,”_ she says, clearly not believing him. _“Stay in your apartment and don’t open the door to anyone.”_

“You think they’ll come back?” Poe asks, and jerks when Finn pulls the thread taut.

“Unlikely, but I haven’t been around this long by being lax. Stay safe.” And then she hangs up.

Poe stays still while Finn finishes up on his face, before Finn starts to move his hands down his chest.

“More pain?” Finn asks.

“I think they hit him in the stomach,” Rey says, beginning to lift his shirt.

“That’s just bruising,” Poe says, batting her hands away, and standing. Pain flares through his abdomen, but it’s dull and easily manageable. “I’m fine. But thank you, it saved me a trip to the ER.”

“I was just doing my job,” Finn says, teeth worrying on his lip. “Listen, Poe, if the First Order really are after you-”

“If I run any risk to the people living in this building I _promise_ that I’ll leave,” Poe assures him. “Which is why I’m going to go back to my apartment.”

“You can’t,” Rey blurts. Poe cocks an eyebrow even though it pulls at the fresh stitches. “I mean… you’re injured. You shouldn’t sleep.”

“Actually that’s a myth,” Finn interjects. For the sake of show he brings out a penlight, and shines it into Poe’s eyes. “See? He doesn’t need further treatment, so he should be fine.”

Rey gives him a very unimpressed look.

“Look, some of the people I work with are going to come and make sure I’m okay,” Poe says reassuringly, “and after that, I’m going to go back to bed. When it’s a more reasonable time in the day, I’ll investigate, but right now I just want to sleep it off.”

“You’re welcome to stay here,” Rey says.

“I know,” Poe says, “and thank you. But last time I checked _you_ have to work and Finn needs to sleep without worrying about me bleeding on the couch.

“I’ll be worrying anyway,” Finn says.

“Listen,” Rey concedes. “Just, stay with us until your friends arrive. Please?”

She looks a little like she’s fraying at the edges, and BB-8 seems to have permanently relocated on his feet, and Finn is wringing his hands.

“I… sure,” Poe says. “Fine, okay. And then I’m going home.”

He sends Jess a text that he’s in 12B instead of 14B, and ten minutes later there’s a loud knock on the door, and before Poe can stand Rey has hurried off to answer it.

“Is Captain Idiot here?” Karé asks.

“Leave her alone,” He calls, “and I’m fine, thanks for asking!”

Karé and Jess walk into the living room, both still in uniform, and take in the sight of Poe sitting, face bloodied and still in his pyjamas, with Finn starting to make coffee.

“Wow,” Karé says, “you look like _shit.”_

“And you have other friends!” Jess says, sounding impressed. “I’m so proud!”

If facepalming wouldn’t possibly damage Finn’s painstaking stitches, Poe would be slamming his head repeatedly against the table.

Karé moves forward, carefully inspecting his face with a critical eye. “You’re an idiot,” she tells him.

“Hey,” he says indignantly, “it’s not like I _asked_ them to hit me.”

“Are you sure? Because-”

“We’re going to run a sweep on your apartment, and then check downstairs,” Jess says quietly, looking at Poe. “I can see you don’t need to go to the hospital.” She looks at Finn and Rey. “So, thanks for looking after him.”

She reaches down and wraps one of his arms over her shoulders pulling him upright.

“You’re welcome to stay,” Finn insists, but Poe brushes him off.

“I need to go home and think about what happened,” he says easily, leaning on Pava. “I’ll see you…?”

“Later today,” Rey says, “so I can check to make sure you’re not dead.”

“I’m sure he’ll look forward to it,” Karé says, sounding bored. “Nice meeting you.”

As soon as they’re out of earshot, Karé says: “I never would have pinned you as a homewrecker, Dameron.”

Blushing scarlet at her tone, he shoves her hard enough for her to trip over BB-8, whose ears are still drooped. _“Be quiet, Kun,”_ he hisses at her.

“Seriously though,” Jess says, sounding curious. “There was something going on there, right?”

“Definitely,” Karé says, nodding, and throwing him a wink.

“I’m injured,” Poe complains. “It’s illegal for you to make fun of me right now.”

“Okay, boss,” says Karé, opening the door and helping to manoeuvre him onto the couch. “Though I still can’t decide who you’d be cheating on who with.”

“How about _neither of them_ because they’re my _friends_ ,” Poe insists, closing his eyes and leaning his head back.

“Why not both?” Jess asks, and hums the _Old El Paso_ theme song under her breath.

Poe doesn’t want to deal with this, so when BB-8 scratches at his leg he hauls him onto his lap and buries his nose into coarse fur.

“Apartment’s clean,” Karé says. “Even though, it’s not really, obviously, because you’re a slob. We’re going to check in the alley, and then we’re gonna leave.” Her voice turns weirdly gentle. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m really fine,” Poe insists for the fifteenth time that morning. Neither of them look like they really believe him, but he gets a kiss pressed onto the crown of his head, and the door closes quietly behind them.

 

He doesn’t actually sleep, and instead finds himself pacing around his living room, BB-8 at his heels.

For some reason, his exhaustion has dried up so he ends up having a shower, trying very hard to avoid scrubbing too hard at his face or the wide blue and green bruises across his ribs. He’s cleaner but even more awake, so because he’s feeling particularly restless and idiotic, he leaves his apartment, locking BB-8 in behind him, and heads back downstairs.

The street is busier now and he gets a few odd looks, so he ducks back into the alley.

It looks the same, only now it’s empty and much hotter, even in the shade. His skin prickles, and he rubs his hand over his eyes. There’s no evidence that the First Order were even there, and the only remnants of their altercation are several spots of Poe’s blood and some crumpled newspapers from where he tripped the Stormtrooper.

Curious, he paces back to where he’d spotted them in the first place, and finds that they’d been standing on the corner next to a dying sapling that BB-8 enjoys chewing on. From this position, he makes a three hundred and sixty degree rotation of the street. He sees the steps of the apartment block, door held slightly agape. The alley, and the pavement, and the lights about ten metres down, and then the Christian centre across the street… nothing particularly exciting or different than normal.

The only reason he can fathom that they were here so early is if they were scoping out another block to start operating on, but D’Qar is traditionally less hospitable than Hosnian Prime, and Organa had apparently been an original owner. They had to know that.

Poe finds himself thinking about Finn’s kneejerk reaction to hearing about the First Order, and then stamps it down. He has the right to his own privacy, and if he got fucked over by them, it’s just another reason to hate them.

As if on cue his phone starts to buzz and, looking down, he sees an unidentified number.

“Hello?”

“ _Poe? It’s Finn.”_

“Oh,” he says, “how did you…?”

_“One of your friends gave me your number,”_ Finn says, “ _because they were worried about you. Anyway, I need to give you your jacket back, and you aren’t in your apartment.”_

“Yeah, I’m downstairs,” Poe says, “I’ll head back up now.”

_“I thought they said to stay in your apartment,”_ Finn says.

“I’ve always been a rule breaker,” Poe replies. “And it’s fine, Finn. There’s no one out here.”

_“Still.”_

“I’ll see you in a minute, okay?”

_“Alright.”_

Hanging up, he shoves his phone into his pocket, and walks back the stairs.

“Hello again,” says a voice from behind him and, turning, he’s hit once, twice, then, nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **notes:** i really liked the idea of poe still working for a kind of splinter group, so i guess "rescue" would be considered a kind of medical/police hybrid with the power to perform arrests/drive people to hospital i guess
> 
> **also;** the characters of karé kun, muran, and iolo arana are from the novel _before the awakening_ , but for those who haven't read it, they were a part of poe's squadron when he still flew for the new republic, and muran was killed in battle prior to poe joining the resistance
> 
> i have a [tumble!](http://gretahs.tumblr.com/)


	2. love in a corellian combi van

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BB-8 is lying across his stomach with an expression that says _you’re not moving now, asshole._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got unexpectedly plotty because i can't control myself so i lied there's another chapter after this oops ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Fuck.

 _“Fuck,”_ he moans, arching his back against the pain. There’s a sharp stab of pins and needles down both arms to his fingers, and his neck is twinging as he hangs forward, chin resting on his chest. He feels weirdly immobile, only able to move his fingers, and past the rushing in his ears he can make out voices:

“- the one who got scared off by a teenager _with a baseball bat.”_

“She was the one. I know it.”

“You knew enough to kidnap one of Organa’s.” There’s what sounds like a laugh. “If this doesn't force us to accelerate our plans I don't know _what_ will. Really, Ren, you seem to be slipping.”

“We’ll find eighty seven, and the girl. We know they’re in D’Qar.”

“We _know_ that we can’t get in there, not while we’re still being blocked at the Senate. Bad enough that you brought one of your mother’s lapdogs-”

_“She is not my mother.”_

There’s a pause, and he can hear two sets of heavy breathing, and the sound of someone pacing on hardwood in heavy boots. One of the voices sounds familiar; a weird, metallic echo that’s muffled through a helmet, and even though he can’t open his eyes, he can imagine them striding back and forth across wherever he is, stupid coat dragging on the floor. There’s a thump, something that sounds suspiciously like a fist hitting a wall, before:

“I will obtain the information the senator asked for. Regardless, we have immunity from Organa in here.”

“I think you’re forgetting exactly why she split from the Senate from the first place,” the first voice says snidely. “If you seriously think that hiding one of her men in a basement is going to do anything to stop whatever it is that she’s planning, you’re–”

“We didn’t take him from D’Qar. Technically, it wasn’t on his property.”

“We aren’t going to avoid a Senate hearing _on a technicality.”_

“Organa knows what she’s doing is illegal. If we pin the robbery on him, it won’t matter what else happened, she’ll have to deny her affiliation with him and leave him out to dry. That’s the risk of her stupid little rescue core.”

There’s a pause, and Poe strains, desperate to hear the rest of the conversation, shifting enough that whatever’s he’s strapped to turns. A wheeled chair, then.

There’s a sigh, and then the robotic voice says:

“I can confirm that eighty seven and the girl are in the building, and that he’s connected to them in some way.”

“Neighbors don’t necessarily breed loyalty. What makes you so sure he knows anything about them in the first place?”

“She defended him with a baseball bat.”

“And that means, what? That they’re friends? Fucking?”

“If I knew that,” he hears loud footsteps, rapidly approaching him, “I wouldn’t have taken him in the first place.”

Poe still has enough sense to play dead as he’s swung around violently, enough so that his weight is caught on his bound arms, causing him to jerk against his will. A hand roughly grabs his chin, pulling his head back until his spine is pressed flush with the chair, before turning him from side to side, as though inspecting his face.

“Who is it?” asks the nasally voice from some distance behind them. “I don’t recognise him.”

“A commander.” Fingers dig into his skin. “A driver, a recent transfer from the police department. And…” a low, bitter sounding laugh, “someone who’s pretending to be unconscious.”

Poe snaps his eyes open just as he gets a swift hit to his solar plexus, held up solely by the hand on his chin, as all the air abruptly leaves his lungs. His eyelashes feel as though they’ve been covered in wax, and he has to blink several times before the world comes into focus.

The room is made of grey concrete walls and a floor that stretches into the darkness. There’s a door to his left, made of heavy iron and bolted shut with a latch, with two Stormtroopers standing at either side, guns at their waists and staring straight ahead. A tall man with a shock of red hair against his grey overcoat, a deep frown on his face and his arms folded is looking over the shoulder of the familiar, black mask of the person who’s holding Poe. He swallows, it seeming loud in the still room, as the redhead’s expression seems to grow more constipated as he rolls his eyes, gesturing towards the door and turning to leave.

“I leave this to you, then,” he says, “try not to disappoint him, this time,” and then the lock clicks back and he’s gone, taking both troopers with him.

A tense moment passes where Poe just stares at the only exit, wishing by some miracle that his salvation will appear, whether it’s in the form of Organa or Karé or a very round, very short corgi. But the door closes again and they’re alone, and the hand drops as the figure kneels in front of the chair, peering up at him. The effect is eery.

“Do you know who I am?” The man asks in a monotone, fingers pressed together in a bridge in front of him. Poe lets his head hang, but maintains eye contact. Or at least, in the vague place where the guy’s eyes should be. There’s still a gun on a holster hanging beneath his left arm.

“No,” Poe says.

He gets a half-hearted shrug, the man not seeming particularly invested in his response, almost as though he were asking solely out of politeness.

“I know who you are,” the man says. “Commander Poe Dameron, pride of Commissioner Organa.”

In response, Poe’s hands tighten into fists, which sends sparks of pain through his sleeping limbs until he can feel how his fingernails are cutting into his skin.

“My name is Kylo Ren,” says Kylo Ren, which is probably the dumbest name Poe has ever heard, and his parents named him _Poe._ “I want you to understand the situation you’ve found yourself in,” Ren continues, leaning in close and resting on hand on the back of the chair.

“I understand _perfectly._ First you attacked me, threatened to shoot me, then you kidnapped me from outside my apartment.” Poe pauses in fake consideration. “So that’s, what? Assault, attempted murder, false imprisonment… twenty-five to life, I’d say.”

He finishes the sentence with his head snapped to one side, blood dripping from his nose and stinging his already bleeding lip. The chair swings with him, until Ren reaches out and pulls it to a stop, the momentum pressing Poe’s cheek to the slick leather. His mouth tastes like copper, and he briefly struggles to breathe past the throbbing pain that flows from his forehead to his chin, then back again. He hears a metallic sigh, before he’s spun round again, but he shuts his eyes, determined to keep it together.  There’s the soft squeak of shifting leather, and then there’s a hand on his throat; not applying pressure or squeezing his windpipe, but there as a warning. The fingers are long enough to curl around to the back of his spine, and Poe can feel his pulse pounding at his throat, barely daring to breath as each time he inhales it pushes him into the heavy weight of cold gloves.

“Your situation,” says Ren, with the tone of someone talking to an especially ignorant drunk college student, “is that you’re aiding and abetting _thieves.”_

Poe gives in, turning to look at him and cringing at the drag of the gloves against his skin. “Pardon?”

Ren cocks his head. “Someone stole something from me, something _important_ , and you’re purposely acting against me to conceal them from the law. That’s what, obstruction of justice?”

Maybe he’s not getting enough oxygen through that stupid mask of his, because Ren is making no sense and Poe has no idea what’s he’s talking about. He leans forward as far as his able which, when the grip tightens suddenly and presses him back, isn’t very far at all.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Poe says, mind racing. Organa hasn’t deployed any infiltration missions recently, and Poe would know: he’s been sent on all of them. Furthermore, Organa isn’t stupid; she never leaves any evidence to confirm Rescue’s participation in the crime, and she’d _certainly_ never run the risk of one of her operatives once the mission had completed. He’s hit again, this time in the stomach, and when he tries to bend, to inhale, he’s trapped by the hand on his throat and he’s left gasping and his ears tearing up and blurring his vision.

“You’re lying to me,” Ren hisses at him, “ _I know you’re lying to me_. You stole a portable storage device from an old acquaintance of mine, or maybe your shitty little organisation paid someone to do it for them, and then you took off. Did you seriously think that we wouldn’t find you? That hiding in a building owned by _Solo_ that we wouldn’t find you?!”

Poe can see Ren’s mouth moving, but he doesn’t understand the words that are coming out. Instead, he just hacks violently, his arms screaming at his twists and turns as he tries to free himself. Ren leans in, finally applying pressure against his neck, and Poe can hear a weird rushing in his ears as the room tilts.

“I’m going to tell you what happened,” Ren says, his voice low. Poe is struggling to make out his dark shape against the black spots that are starting to appear in the room, sinking into a weird swirl of colour and light. “I don’t think Organa planned this. She’s careful, and she knows too much about my organisation already. I think you decided to prove yourself to her, I think you decided to get someone you had on the inside to steal that information, to smuggle it back to you.” Suddenly he releases the hold he has on Poe’s neck, and Poe gasps, screwing his eyes shut and his mouth hanging open. The air is stale and full of loose dust, but it is the most beautiful thing Poe has ever tasted.

There’s a hand in his hair, and his head is shaken so hard that his teeth rattle.

“Does that sound like what happened?” Ren asks smoothly, voice irritatingly calm through the filter.

“I don’t know _what you’re talking about_ ,” Poe spits past the red foam on his lips, going almost cross eyed with the effort of looking at the mask. He’s shaken again, and a pounding starts up behind his eyes, building in magnitude as Ren’s hand tightens, tugging at his scalp, until the pain forces tears out of his eyes and down his cheeks. “And I won’t be intimidated by you.”

Ren sighs, releasing his hair and smoothing a hand down Poe’s cheek, thumbing at the tear track.

“We know about them,” he says, tone dropping. “ _We know.”_

“You don’t know shit,” Poe manages, fighting off dizziness, determined to stay conscious. Another hit across the face, then another. It’s worse whiplash than when Jess pulls the brakes too quickly to make it around a corner and his seatbelt stops his body suddenly, causing stress up his spine.

“Eighty-seven,” Ren says, “we know eighty-seven stole the information.”

“What the fuck does that even _mean?”_ Poe groans, choking past spit and blood to keep breathing, his body feeling beaten and exhausted. He knows the cut on his forehead has reopened, and that he has at least half a dozen new ones to match and all he wants to do is _sleep_ and wake up on Finn and Rey’s couch, with BB-8 on his lap.

“How hard do I have to _push_ until you understand that I’m going to kill you if you don’t cooperate?” Ren muses, not waiting for a response before grinding his fingers into the muscle at the base of Poe’s throat. The pain is intense, and Poe has to stop himself from crying out, muffling the sound by gritting his teeth, blinking furiously at the ceiling.

“This isn’t a fucking game of _Guess Who_ ,” Poe says, “I need you to be more spe _-”_

He’s cut off by his own strangled scream as Ren presses a heavy boot over his bare foot, pressing down until the bones of his toes grind together and threaten to crack. Poe swallows the sound, trembling with the effort to keep quiet, while Ren just stares at him, mask in place and standing poised, blocking the light. He gasps past tears, swallowing a sob and clenching his eyes shut.

“We don’t want to start a war,” Ren says. “Really, that’s the last thing we want. We want to _help_ the city fight against a stagnant Senate, to help the people who are betrayed by the people who have sworn to serve them. Your commissioner can’t afford to fight us, and if she does she’ll lose.” There’s a press of metal against his cheekbone as Ren leans in close, making him shiver. “You don’t want that, do you?”

Poe doesn’t want that, but he also doesn’t want to risk whatever Organa’s done to affect the First Order this much, for them to risk snatching him outside his apartment building and bringing him to one of their bases. Whatever she stole, or whatever _eighty seven_ stole is worth more than his life at this point, and maybe Poe won’t go out like his mother in a blaze of glory, but his dad will know that he died doing something worthwhile.

He wonders if Rey and Finn will look after his dog. BB-8 hasn’t been fed today… or was it yesterday? He’s lost track of time in here, especially since there aren’t any windows.

“Let me get this right,” Poe says, words slurring together. He wishes his hands were free. “You think that I paid off an animate number to steal a USB from your friend because I wanted to impress Organa?”

The dullness of the room is suddenly cut by a phone in front of his face, close enough that it blurs into brightness, and Poe has to lean back further and squint until a shape swims into view.

“You know her,” Ren states.

It’s a very blurry picture of Rey, at an angle that would imply it’s a screenshot of a security cam. A bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face as his stomach turns, because suddenly all the mentions of “the girl” are starting to make a lot more sense. In his mind’s eye he sees the mismatched apartment and Rey’s expression when he made sandwiches, or the first time he slept on their couch. He thinks about what would happen to her if the First Order had grabbed her instead of him.

He wonders what the First Order would have done to _Finn._

Poe says nothing.

“I don’t need to ask you,” Ren continues, “because I already know. She was in the alley with you, she knew you by name, and she lives in the D’Qar block.”

Oh god they’re going to _kill her._

“I’m going to paint you a different picture now,” he says, flicking sideways to show a new image: it’s a blurry candid shot of their building, a misshaped figure holding the front door open for another smaller shape. “This girl steals information with eighty seven, and then you hide them in plain sight, protecting them for Organa, safely out of our reach. Is that right?”

“I have no idea,” Poe says honestly, his heart pounding in his chest. He can’t run the risk of hurting Rey or Finn, whatever the hell the two of them have done, which means bullshitting this guy until he loses interest, or gets distracted enough for Organa to hopefully be notified of his disappearance. Ren sighs, the sound distorting into what sounds like laboured breathing, and then almost caressing the side of his face with the phone. It feels blissfully cool.

 “I wonder,” Ren says, tapping the chin of his mask mockingly, “what Organa will do when they find your body?”

It’s an obvious attempt to get a rise out of him, but Poe just stiffens his spine and bites down on his lip until the cut reopens and his mouth fills with salt.

“Will she mourn you, do you think? Or will she just send another of her expendable lackies to finish the job?”

“At least we have the dignity of dying without masks,” Poe hisses at him, “and we don’t attack people in their homes because – _hurrk!”_

The hand on his throat cuts off any chance of breath, and Poe is stuck, eyelashes fluttering as he gasps silently when Ren shakes him again, jerking the whole chair after him.

“ _Where is it?!”_ He hears Ren say, although the words seem garbled. _“Tell me! Where. Is. The. Map?!”_

“Don’t-” is all Poe can get out before the fingers tighten further, and Poe can feel his eardrums pressurise and tears leak from his eyes.

 _“You_ will _tell me!”_

Poe couldn’t tell him anything even if he wanted to because he’s pretty sure he’s going to die.

Better him than Rey, really. Or Finn.

He hopes that someone will feed BB.

Ren says something else, but it sounds like he’s underwater, all weird and garbled and throaty, like a very asthmatic whale song.

 _At least it’ll be over soon,_ Poe thinks as the world starts to fade.

_At least it’ll be over –_

 

He wakes some while later, throat feeling raw and his neck feeling collared by bruises, but alive.

At some point, someone has wrapped a thick band of duct tape across his mouth, pulling at the skin of his cheeks and forcing him to breathe through his nose, causing more blood to slide down the back of his throat. Time drips past in indistinct stages: the guard changes, he loses all feeling in both arms and one foot, he manages to open one eye, then the other, and blink lazily up at the ceiling. There’s a fly stuck to the lens of the naked bulb protruding from the ceiling.

They haven’t killed him yet, and honestly Poe isn’t sure why. Kylo Ren hasn’t returned, nor has his companion, and while the Stormtroopers are constant, silent company, he hasn’t been visited by anyone else which means one of two things: they’re waiting it out, hoping that he’ll talk; or they’re waiting that some idiot is actually going to try and perform a rescue.

Or they’ve forgotten about him. Maybe the person who’s finally going to shoot him in the head is on the way right now?

It’s not a particularly comforting thought, so instead Poe decides to compartmentalise.

The room hasn’t changed; he still can’t make out two of the walls in the gloom, and the door is bolted shut. His ankles are tied to the legs of the chair, meaning that while his feet are flat on the floor, he doesn’t have the room to manoeuvre. (Not like that would achieve much anyway; spinning in circles in a basement is not an ideal escape plan.) He tries to concentrate on whatever it was that Ren had been asking about, but for some reason his line of thought keeps slipping from anything important back to the idea that _Organa can’t come for him_ and _it’ll be over soon._

And something about Rey. And… a map? To Rey?

Alternatively, this is all a very weird dream caused by his sleep deprivation, and he’s going to wake up to BB-8 scratching at the couch because he’s overslept again, and he’ll come home to find that his dog has gotten out again and invaded his neighbor’s apartment. That’s a pleasant thought, and he holds onto it firmly with both hands of his consciousness until the door opens again, and a single Stormtrooper strides in, muttering something to the other two, before moving towards him.

They’re armed, and their stance reeks of tension as they violently yank the tape from Poe’s mouth before reaching back and unhooking his arms, then moving to his legs. The sudden return of feeling is excruciating, and in between trying to swallow a cry of pain he attempts to lick away the dryness in his mouth. He considers maybe making a break for it, but his whole body feels like dead weight, and when he’s hauled upright he staggers, almost unable to stand. Whatever Ren did to his feet feels like he’s walked across pointed gravel, and his toes are swollen and badly bruised. His captor shows no patience; holding him firmly by one arm and keeping the gun aimed at his chest, and yanking him out of the room, ignoring how he staggers and struggles to stay awake. There’s a rush of blood to his brain and his vision goes a bit spotty, to the point where he doesn’t even bother to track wherever it is that they’re going. Up, down, around a corner, down another hallway.

He doesn’t have the energy to properly react when he’s shoved into an open doorway leading to a supplies closet, just sagging against the wall, resting his head back. The Stormtrooper fiddles with their gun, and all Poe can think is that this is an especially unromantic place to die. But there is bleach close at hand, he thinks, peering into the cupboard, so at least they’ll get the stain out.

But then the helmet comes off, and it’s _Finn_ , who’s probably the most beautiful thing Poe’s ever seen.

Or a First Order spy.

“F..?” Poe manages, his throat feeling like a desert, blindly grabbing at the air before he makes contact with the Kevlar armour of Finn’s jacket. Finn faces is bright with sweat, and his pupils are tiny. He’s twitching, rapidly shifting from one foot to the other as he drops the gun to the ground and carefully wraps his arms around Poe’s shoulder, pulling him into a hug. The pain is intense, but Poe can feel Finn’s warmth through the leather, so he just clings to him tightly, ignoring the agony.

 _“Thank god,”_ he hears, muffled into the collar of his shirt, “ _thank god, thank god, thank god.”_

“What?” Poe tries, to little success, moving away, and looking Finn up and down. “What…?”

 _Are you doing here?_ The question seems to hang in the air, but Finn just holds him gingerly by the waist, cautious of the bruises hidden under his clothes.

“We’re getting you out,” he says firmly. Finn glances up and down the hallway, and looking back at him. “Right home. We’re getting you out and taking you back to D’Qar.”

“No,” Poe protests, because this seems like a terrible idea. They wanted to kill Finn, he knows. “No, Finn-”

“ _Yes,”_ Finn interrupts, and then the helmet’s back on, and the gun is picked up from the ground and the hand on his shoulder is back, only this time it’s accompanied by a low litany of _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

Somehow, Finn knows the way well enough that he navigates the various levels of the building with ease, until they emerge into a wide hanger of some kind that Finn just strides through, holding his gun upright and keeping his pace fast. It’s as though they’re invisible, Poe muses, as half a dozen armed guards pass them by without as much as a look, and no one stopping them as they head towards the opening rolling door and into the sunlight. It’s late afternoon, Poe’s brain tells him, because if nothing else the sky is drilled into him so deep that even a concussion won’t knock it out.

The mostly empty street is lined with slick black SUVS and several dozen parked two person motorcycles. The air is muggy, and the sweat on Poe’s face does nothing to cool him as they pause in the driveway, Finn looking around, as though waiting for something.

“What’s going on?” asks a new voice from behind them. Finn jumps, and his hold on Poe tightens. “Are you authorised to be out here?”

“We’re waiting for transport,” Finn says in a tone Poe doesn’t recognise. It sounds clinical, and cold.

There’s a pregnant pause, and Poe doesn’t dare look around.

“Who’s that with you, trooper?” The voice asks, and there’s the sound of approaching footsteps. “Is that-?”

 _“FINN!”_ Against his better judgement, Poe jerks around, ignoring the twinge in the back of his neck, as a grimy, off-white van tears around the corner, horn blaring and headlights at full power. Poe’s almost thrown forward as the door flies open and he lands on the floor, hard, effectively rendering him paralysed from the pain. From his position, he can hear the unmistakable sound of gunfire from above him, and the feeling as one of the windows shatters, forcing him to close his eyes as glass rains across his chest.

 _“Shoot back!”_ says a voice that sounds a lot like Rey. Currently, easily tied with Finn for the most beautiful thing in the entire world. _“Shoot!”_

“I’m _trying!”_ Finn yells at her, and a much closer round goes off, and there’s a muffled explosion. “I think I hit a propane tank!”

“Nice work!” Definitely Rey, then. Poe tries to sit up, leaning back on his elbows, but his arms sink into the glass, and then there’s a very fat, very fluffy thing pawing at his chest and panting in his ear, and he’s crying out, arching off the floor.

“BB!” The dog is yanked off Poe, who’s then lowered onto something softer, folded beneath his head. Managing to open an eye, he sees the blurry shape of Finn leaning over him, brows creased in concern and still wearing the Stormtrooper uniform. “Hold still, alright? I’m going to-” He vanishes from sight briefly, before reappearing with a swatch of bandages.

The cotton feels like nettles on his skin.

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, “Poe, I’m sorry, but I can’t let these cuts get infected, alright? Please, I’m sorry.”

“Is he alright?” Rey calls from the driver’s seat.

“No,” Finn replies, pushing BB-8 away with one hand. “No, he’s not.”

This brand of car looks familiar, Poe thinks airily to himself, as he stares up at the roof. He sees that it’s now riddled with bullet holes. His brain still isn’t quite up to speed, but he makes a habit of trying to at least be able to recognise the signature features of most models. And this car is clearly a dump, and smells of cigarettes and wet dog, but its shape and its colour and its hood design only means one thing: it’s _definitely_ stolen.

It’s a Corellian model.

 _The_ Corellian model.

Finn looks very disturbed when Poe starts laughing, so hard that he finds he can’t stop, even as tears leak out his eyes and his ribs painfully protest at all the wriggling he’s started doing as he tries to choke in air in between cackles. Finn just takes to awkwardly patting Poe’s cheeks until he finally manages to inhale, raising a shaking hand to wipe at his cheeks, before turning as best he can to look at Rey’s back.

“ _Nice car,”_ he says hoarsely, and even with his faulty vision he can make out that she looks around and smiles at him.

 

The remainder of the trip passes like a dream: a dream filled with nausea and uncontrollable whines of pain every time Rey drives over a bump or pothole. She apologises furiously, and Finn keeps a hold of his hand, using the other to apply constant pressure to his ribs.

Poe very briefly entertains the thought that the two of them had secretly been Rescue the entire time and that Organa had deployed them to get him out, instead of being two young idiots who for some irrational reason cared about him enough to rescue him from the mob.

And who were apparently stupid enough to get caught up with the First Order in the first place.

As soon as Poe can feel his face again _he’s going to rip them a new one._

Rey parks with a protesting grind from the wheels beneath him. Hopping out and jogging to the side door, tugging it open with one hand. She and Finn say something to each other, before she reaches in and pulls at one of his arms, somehow moving him upright. The pain has spread into low, constant throbs, and he hisses through his teeth to avoid moaning.

“I know,” Rey soothes, “but we’re almost back, Poe. Almost there.”

Finn gets out and stands, before leaning down and very, very gently reaching under Poe’s knees and lifting him into his arms, head tucked into his shoulder. It tugs at his bruised shoulder, but Poe stays quiet, relishing the contact and the warmth, as they make their way up the friend steps, where Rey fumbles with the keys before they’re inside. She has BB-8 tucked under one arm, Poe realises. The dog’s tail and ears are down, looking the unhappiest Poe’s ever seen him. He reaches out, maybe to scratch behind BB’s ears, but he can’t seem to make the distance.

“Something something,” Rey murmurs, in a voice too low for Poe to make out, but they’re moving towards the stairs and Poe has to shut his eyes, because the circular stairs are making his head ache and his stomach tilt dangerously. He doesn’t want to throw up on Finn. Or his dog.

“My apartment,” Poe says, but they seem to ignore him. He tugs weakly at Finn’s shirt. “My… my apartment.”

They walk right past Poe’s apartment and also don’t acknowledge he said anything, until he’s deposited with the utmost care onto their couch, and Finn vanishes into the bathroom, rummaging around in the medicine cabinet. He tears a tap running, and then there’s a cool cloth on his forehead, and he sees Rey crouching in front of him, gently washing his face. He manages to wrap his fingers around her wrist, giving her a crooked grin that she shakily returns, before moving aside as Finn opens the first aid kit, fiddling with a bottle of pills and holding out a glass of water.

“This is going to hurt,” Finn says, making sure Poe has a firm grip on the glass before letting go and handing him a pill, “and you shouldn’t really have this on an empty stomach, but you’ll need it. It’s a painkiller and mild sedative, alright? It’ll hopefully knock you out by the time I’m done.”

“I need…” Poe tries, but Finn tips the glass to his mouth, and he’s drinking for the first time in hours, and Finn’s the only thing keeping him from chugging the whole thing down at once. He swallows three times, relishing the feeling, before blinking sleepily. “I need… my apartment…”

“We’re not leaving you alone,” Rey says, “if nothing else because you might bleed out.”

Finn looks at him earnestly, before taking the moment to begin patting down above his eye with a cloth. “You said they might come back,” he says, “you’re probably safer here.”

“Or they could come here looking for me,” Poe says, internally shaking himself awake, “which, speaking of,” he brushes Finn away, pointing at Finn, “the First Order asked me about you. _Why?”_

They both freeze in place, looking mutually horrified, just staring at him. It’s a little painful to watch.

“Well?” Poe says, looking between them, “I really want an answer, because the one thing you don’t expect after being kidnapped by the mob is for them to start asking about your neighbors.”

Rey opens her mouth as though she were going to say something, and then just closes it again.

Finn does nothing, but his grip on the bandages tightens until he’s physically shaking.

“What do you mean?” Rey asks, sounding choked.

“What do you think?” Poe says, his voice sounding snappish and harsh. He can’t seem to control himself though, even as he feels guilty at the pain he’s obviously causing the two of them. “They had a photo – they had _photos_ of you, of you at D’Qar, of your face. They told me that you, what?” he tries to think back, “that you _stole_ something?” He looks back at her. “Would you mind telling me exactly what drove you to _steal something from the First Order?!”_

At the sound of his raised voice, somewhere nearby BB-8 barks and then begins to whine.

“You shouldn’t get so emotional,” Finn says, trying to distil the tension by resting a hand on Poe’s heaving chest, “listen, Poe, you’ve just been _tortured-”_

 “You’re going to tell me what the _fuck_ you two were doing with the First Order,” Poe snaps at him, dropping his hand from his voice and stabbing his finger at them. There’s a loaded silence, as the two of them look at him with wide eyes, stuck between sitting and standing. “Okay, because I don’t – whatever you two did, whatever you took from them, _it’s not worth it_ , alright? You’re not Rescue, you’re not police, you’re not with the Senate. Snoke is going to _kill you.”_

“It was worth it,” Rey blurts, and then claps a hand over her mouth when Finn shoots her a look.

Poe runs a frantic hand through his hair, trying to keep his composure, to level his breathing, to not panic. The image of Muran’s charred body tastes foul and keeps appearing in his eyes without his permission, only now it’s two corpses, younger and not in uniform, and he’s still helpless to watch as they explode into flames.

“Then you should’ve come to me! Or Jess or Karé, you met them the other night! This isn’t about fighting a couple of politicians, the police literally can’t stop them, and there is _very little_ stopping them from marching in here and–“

 _“Poe.”_ Finn’s voice is firm, though it cracks halfway through his name.

“We can explain,” Rey says at the same time, and they glance at each other again. They share a look that Poe is too tired to try and interpret, until Rey touches Finn’s arm, and nods. “I worked for the First Order.”

“Rey-” Finn begins, before Poe cuts him off with: _“you worked for the First Order?!”_

“You know I work for a mechanic now,” Rey says with a carefully straight face, “but before that, I did some work for the First Order, minor stuff, nothing special.” She swallows. “But then… a couple of months ago, something happened and I decided to cut my losses and leave. But I didn’t _steal_ anything, I swear.”

“And Finn?” Poe asks, looking at him. Finn’s eyes are wide, and red, and he keeps blinking at the ground.

“I met Finn in the moment, and we helped each other.” Rey says blandly, without inflection.

“Finn?” Poe repeats. Finn looks at him, face clear of emotion.

“Yeah,” Finn says quietly, in almost a whisper, “I helped her. I did, I helped her.”

He gives Rey another look.

Poe can’t handle this.

“I need to call Organa,” Poe says, acting almost on autopilot. “I have to… we need to get you two out of here, out of the city, until we figure out what to do.” He scrabbles for his phone still resting on the table, but then hands close around his wrists, gently pushing him back onto the couch, until he sinks into the pillows. “Guys, I need to-”

“I’ll call Jess,” Rey says, her face twisting. “You can’t… you rest, alright?”

“Rey-”

“ _Sleep_ Poe,” Finn says, smoothing hair back from his forehead. He looks horribly guilty, as though he had just figured out some horrible truth, but it’s around that time that the painkillers kick in and _wow_ Poe has been sleeping more in the past twenty four hours than he usually does in a week.

 

Somehow while asleep Poe’s made his way from the couch to a bed, which he assumes is in Finn and Rey’s room.

It’s a firm mattress, and he’s got sheets pulled up to his chin that have the fragrance of soap and lavender and are worn against the cuts on his bare shoulders. There’s also a comforting, warm shape lying against his midsection that makes a weird snuffling noise and twitches and smells of dog. He manages to lift his head, ignoring the strain in his neck, and sees BB’s round body lying as close to Poe as he can get, little legs in the air. He shifts, managing to free one arm and run a hand down the dog’s side and he jerks away, blinking at the room before catching sight of Poe. Immediately, he feels the tell-tale swish of a stubby tail on his thigh, and BB-8 clambers upright, sinking into the blankets and going in for a kiss. Poe is still too sore to really move, but he manages to dodge the tongue enough so that it hits his chin instead of his mouth, and keeps patting the coarse fur.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe says, his voice sounding horribly crackly and hoarse. “Have Finn and Rey been looking after you?”

At the mention of Finn and Rey, BB-8’s tail seems to increase in velocity, until it begins to scratch the sheets, bunching them towards the foot of the bed.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” Poe tells him with a smile, scratching behind the dog’s ears. BB-8 preens, tongue out of his mouth and panting heavily. There is two fluffed pillows behind his head and he pushes them back, moving to sit up.

The feeling of nausea is instant, and he has to duck over the side of the bed, trying desperately not to throw up on the patterned carpet, swallowing bile before he spots the glass of water on the bedside table. He stops himself from drinking the whole thing at once, instead carefully leaning back and taking a few sips at a time, trying to keep his breathing even. There’s a sudden shift in weight, and he looks down.

BB-8 is lying across his stomach with an expression that says _you’re not moving now, asshole._

Briefly, he wonders what woke him, and then he hears something that sounds like distant thunder, and wonders about the weather. He fumbles with putting the glass back, flinching with surprise when a phone starts vibrating. He’s surprised to see that it’s his own, the dull brightness still stinging his eyes. He wipes at them with the back of one hand, using the other to pick it up and blindly flick it on.

“Hello?” He croaks, and coughs. Both his hands are bandaged, and he sees that there are more bandages wrapped around his chest and, after prodding his face, more wrapped around his forehead and taped across his nose.

 _“Dameron, where the hell have you been?”_ A guttural voice snaps down the line. Poe finds himself unconsciously moving to attention. “ _You’ve been off the grid for more twenty-four hours. What the_ fuck _did I say about being careful?”_

“Ma’am?” Poe says, though it’s really more of a question. His phone seems to be crackling more than usual, and his head is still pounding. There’s a long pause, and he hears someone begin to walk.

 _“Dameron?”_ Organa says, sounding purposely calm, meaning that she’s trying very hard to not yell. “ _Dameron, what’s going on?”_

“I…” Poe begins, then stops, because he isn’t really sure what’s going on. BB-8 is here, he knows that. And his face hurts, also. He might be facing a demotion. “I’m… I’m alright, ma’am.”

“ _That doesn’t answer my question,”_ Organa says, impatient. _“Are you at home? Poe?”_

“I’m in D’Qar,” Poe says.

 _“You weren’t there when Iolo checked up on you,”_ Organa tells him, “ _so, where were you? Where you anywhere near Hosnian Prime?”_

“I was… ma’am,” Poe swallows again, rubbing at his forehead, “ma’am, there’s this… Kylo Ren-”

 _“Oh_ fuck,” Organa says. The pace through the phone picks up, and then some muffled yelling as Organa shouts at someone close by. She sounds out of breath when she gets back on the phone. “ _Poe, listen to me. Are you safe?”_

Is he? The First Order guy that Poe couldn’t identify had said that they couldn’t get him in D’Qar, hadn’t he? Which might’ve been why they’d grabbed him on the street. But then he’d said something else-

_“Poe?”_

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m safe,” Poe says. BB-8 licks his hand.

Organa breathes out heavily.

 _“Alright, listen to me,”_ she says finally, _“are you badly wounded?”_

“How did you…?”

_“Just answer the question, please.”_

Poe doesn’t know the extent of his injuries, but Finn is a professional, so… “I don’t think so,” he says, “not serious enough for a hospital, anyway.”

_“Fuck.”_

“Ma’am?”

 _“You said you were in D’Qar, right?”_ She asks. _“Well, stay there, alright? I’ll send someone over…_ don’t _leave, no matter what. Stay put, don’t answer the phone to anyone but me, and if anything happens you call me immediately, alright?”_

Poe feels as though something’s happened that he’s missed out on. “Ma’am? What’s happened? Did something… has the First Order-?”

 _“Your only mission right now is to recover,”_ Organa says, her tone brokering no room for argument. _“So stay put. When my people get there, you’re going to tell them exactly how the hell the First Order got the drop on you for the second time in less than a_ day.”

“Yes ma’am,” Poe says, feeling sheepish.

 _“Good.”_ A pause, then: _“stay safe, alright Dameron? That’s an order.”_

“Yes ma’am.” Poe says, and she hangs up.

He lets the phone drop, not having the energy for anything else, and leaning his head back into the pillows. In the event that somehow Organa finds the evidence that he was kidnapped in the first place (that is, if they don’t find some way to pin the supposed crime onto him,) she’d have no chance at proving it in court, and she’d have no way of prosecuting Snoke or anyone else in the Senate.

If nothing else, that conversation has proven one thing to him: if Organa had had any suspicions about him having been taken by Kylo Ren, she hadn’t expected him to be found alive.

BB shuffles up, until he’s curled into Poe’s ribs, nose pressed wet and cold into his neck. A moment passes like that, until a tail starts gently hitting his side again and Poe realises that he really needs to go to the bathroom, so he eases his way out from under BB-8 and pulls his feet from the blanket and onto the floor. There’s another roll of bandages across the arch of both feet, and tiny wrappings around his toes that twinge when he tries to move them. Leaning down makes his back crack in a weird way and his chest aches, but he manages to stand, catching his weight on the table and breathing past the sudden dizziness, as BB somehow rolls onto the rug where he sits, gazing up at Poe and letting out a worried whine.

“Shh,” Poe says, “you’ll get Finn in here.”

BB’s ears droop, but he follows Poe to the bathroom, before he manages to close the door while balanced on one foot, keeping one hand clenched on the edge of the basin. He determinedly doesn’t look at the mirror until after he’s pissed, and when he does finally turn around he’s both surprised and underwhelmed by how bad he looks.

Both Rey and Finn’s reactions had been terror and worry, and past the lines of white crossing over his sternum and down to his abdomen, Poe can still see the dark, deep splotches of black and purple that are starting to fade to a sickly green dotted with yellow. His nose is bloated and yellow, one eye is almost swollen shut, and his lip is fat and bright red with a cut that’s only just begun to close.

But the worst by far is the necklace of putrid looking marks around his neck, where he can clearly making out the distinct lines of Ren’s fingers as they dug into his flesh. His Adam’s apple bobs almost painfully as he swallows, and he tilts his head to one side, running his hand down his throb and gently touching the largest bruise. It throbs, and he has to duck over the sink, fighting off nausea and the ghost sensation of blood in his mouth and the air being forced out of his lungs. He knocks over the soap and hits his knee on the wall when there’s a sound knock on the door, accompanied by paws scratching against the wood.

“Poe?” Rey says. “Are you alright?”

In the reflection, he sees the door open, and Rey peeks her head inside.

It’s the first time he’s seen her with her hair out, and it curls around her face and shoulders in gentle waves. It makes her look younger, but does nothing to hide the dark circles under her eyes.

Poe leans down, running his hands a couple of times under the tap and splashing his face, rubbing at his eyes. There’s a hand at his back, then around to his face, and he’s gently pushed upright as Rey puts a towel in his hands.

“Finn said you shouldn’t get your bandages wet,” Rey says, biting her lip as she looks him over, gaze travelling from his throat and down his chest. He tries not to flush.

“Sorry,” he says, dabbing at his cheeks with the towel. He takes the moment to hide his face, trying not to panic. “Is Finn still here?”

“He’s in the kitchen.” Rey rests a hand on the crook of his elbow, dumping the towel on the closed lid of the toilet and firmly manoeuvring him out of the room and out to the lounge room, where Finn is facing the stove, swearing quietly to himself.

Everything seems disturbingly normal, and if it weren’t for the fact that Poe is still having a little bit of trouble breathing and that BB-8 hasn’t left his side, ignoring Rey’s offering of a scratch, he would have thought he’d just gone on another early morning visit to their apartment. Somewhere in the distance, there’s another thunderclap, and the sound of sirens.

“I should redo your bandages,” Finn says, sitting beside him at the kitchen island, and putting a plate of eggs in front of him, as well as a pill and another glass of water. The food, rather than being appetising, makes him feel ill, so he fiddles around with it on his plate, mindlessly slicing it with his fork. An awkward silence descends as Rey gets a cup of coffee and joins them, sitting on Poe’s other side.

“Do either of you want to tell what the hell you did last night?” Poe says finally, for lack of anything else to say. A whole night has passed, and the light falling from the window is short enough for it to still be early, maybe six AM. “Exactly how do came up with the _idea_ to do what you did?”

Finn takes his hand, and he looks up.

“I was off-shift the day they took you,” Finn starts, sounding hesitant, as though unsure of himself, “but I like to get up when Rey does, when she leaves for work. Then I remembered that I’d forgotten to give you your jacket back when you were over before, so I decided to return it. I thought that maybe you might still be asleep, because you’d said that you were on break, but then I heard scratching at our door, and BB-8 was in the hallway, alone.”

 _“Again?”_ Poe says incredulously, looking down at the door, who looks pleased at the attention, before scratching at the chair, whining to be picked up. Poe achieves this with some difficulty, and some assistance from Rey, until BB is carefully arranged on his back in Poe’s lap, head held in the dip of Poe’s elbow, and tail hanging out over his thighs. “I’m installing a child safety lock, you’ve run out of chances.”

“I thought it was weird too,” Finn agrees, “so I knocked on your door, and it didn’t seem like you were home.”

“So you got out then locked the door behind you,” Poe says into BB-8’s fur, “honestly, you’re such a considerate runaway. Maybe you should wash up before the next time you duck out for a stroll to bother the neighbors.”

“Then I called you,” Finn continues, “and you said you were outside, so I waited. Then Rey left for work, and I asked her to check outside for you, and she found your phone.” He stops and sighs, rubbing at his eyes furiously. Rey reaches across the table and takes his hand, and there’s a weird swooping sensation in Poe’s stomach. “We did call your friends,” he says, quietly, “we called Jessika, and she said she couldn’t do anything about it because they’d entered a state of emergency, but she’d tell your boss.”

“And that we shouldn’t call the cops,” Rey interjects.

“Right,” Finn says. “So we didn’t, we stayed quiet, we stayed inside. But by about midday, there was a car circling the block, taking photos of the building, and we recognised it as First Order, so…” he trails off, glancing at Rey.

“We asked my boss,” Rey says, “if he knew anything about it. He’s been in the city a while, he’s been around. He told us not to go to the police too, told us to talk to Leia Organa… your boss, right?”

“Yeah,” Poe says, wondering about who Rey could be working for who would advise her to talk to Organa. An ex-cop maybe? Someone related to a Senator?

“Based on experience, we knew about First Order hangouts,” Rey says, and Poe gets the distinct feeling that she’s purposely leaving out information, “so we decided to check it out. By that point it’d be a day, and we knew…” she looks at Finn, “we knew that the First Order isn’t in the habit of keeping their prisoners alive.”

“So you decided to break into their base like idiots,” Poe finishes for her. BB’s weight is warm and comforting, and keeps him grounded against the panic that’s starting to resurface, because the two of them still didn’t seem to understand that they _both could have died._

“Finding you was more important,” Rey says stubbornly, and Finn nods his head.

“No,” Poe insists, “it wasn’t! Especially since the First Order is after you, and God knows that they’d do to Finn.”

“It _was,”_ Finn says, grabbing Poe’s chin and forcing him to look into his eyes. _“It was_. Even if it had just been a hunch, but believe me by that point it really wasn’t, it still would have been worth it, to get you out.”

“We don’t want you to die, Poe,” Rey says, stroking his knuckles, sending shivers up his spine.

There’s another pause, where something clicks in the back of Poe’s head, and everything suddenly comes together with a very unpleasant _snap_. Relatively close by, there’s a string of sirens, but Poe can’t bring himself to care.

“What is this?” He asks, barely audible. Finn squints at him.

“What’s what?”

“ _This.”_ Poe makes a motion between the three of them with the hand not holding BB. Rey turns a bit red, and inspects the counter furiously, not making eye contact. “You risked everything to get me out of there. Why.”

“Because we care about you,” Finn says easily, as though it should be obvious. “And we didn’t want you to die.”

“Right, okay,” Poe says, trying to keep it together, “but I mean, what’s…”

He repeats the motion.

“We like you,” Rey says without a hint of humour, and Poe’s eyebrows arch towards his hairline, before being impeded by his bandage. He looks at the two of them, slow enough that the dizziness doesn’t start up again.

“You mean…” Poe says hesitantly, “you… you like me, or you _like_ me, or you _like like_ me?”

“What’s the difference?” Finn asks, genuinely curious.

“I’m judging by the amount of skin contact,” Poe admits, and begins scratching BB’s stomach, for a lack of something better to do.

“If you want,” Rey says, “any of the three. Right?” She looks at Finn.

He nods, his cheeks turning rosy. “Right.”

“Oh,” Poe doesn’t know what to say, so he just sits in silence.

Neither of them seem to take offence, and instead carefully give him distance: far enough that there’s no longer any direct contact, but close enough that he can feel they’re still there with his eyes closed.

He hasn’t had anything really resembling a relationship since Muran, and that was more of an unfortunately timed fling than anything, so the idea of something like this with _two_ people instead of the far more easily managed _one_ is more than a little daunting, especially since they both look about twenty years younger than him and are clearly at a good spot in their relationship without him.

Poe can’t say he’s adverse to the thought though, his recent rescue notwithstanding. Okay, so he’s not adverse to the point where he’s embarrassed, and wants to drown himself in the bathtub.

“Have you… done this before?” he asks, “or is this something you’re experienced with?”

“Finn is my first proper relationship,” Rey says calmly, “and vice versa.”

“Oh my god,” Poe says, feeling disgusted at himself, “how old are you? _Twelve?”_

“I’m _nineteen,”_ Rey snaps at him, folding her arms, “and I know you, and I know what I want.”

“If you know me at all you’ll know that I’m a mild trainwreck,” says Poe, “trust me, if I’m the attempt to add some spark to your relationship, you should really go find somebody who’s struggling less emotionally.”

Rey just gives him a look that reminds him eerily of Organa, while Finn just sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose, exasperated.

If he didn’t still feel like he’d taken the Rescue fleet to his face, he probably would have glared at the two of them. But as it was, he just pulls a tissue and dabs at his eye, where one of the stitches feels like it’s undoing.

“We’re not going to do anything you don’t want,” Finn asserts, “and we don’t want to make you feel obligated to do anything for us, and I guess we haven’t known each for that long. But we _do_ like you, a lot.”

“You sure you’re not trying to get with me so I won’t arrest you for grand theft auto?” Poe asks weakly, when Rey slides a hand up and down his back.

“I did no such thing,” she says with fake indignity.

“I recognise a Corellian model when I see one,” he tells her, and suddenly their lips are very close, and this is a very awful idea. He leans back abruptly, and Rey looks neither angry not upset, and instead just smiles at him.

“You’ve got an eye for cars, then,” she says, “I’ll have to take you to the shop sometime.” She glares at Finn over her shoulder. “He doesn’t appreciate my work.”

“I appreciate everything about you,” Finn says, and then he’s kneading the muscle at the back of Poe’s neck, and suddenly Poe is very close to tipping BB off his lap. As it were, he just falls forward until he lands on Rey’s shoulder, stifling a moan as Finn digs into a knot with his knuckles. “I just don’t understand a lot of what you tell me.”

“I’ll take you driving, sometime,” Poe says into Rey’s shirt. “I can go really fast.”

“Not as fast as me, I’ll bet,” she says, and Poe can’t see her face but it just _sounds_ like a euphemism.

And there’s nothing sexual about it, but a moment passes where he basks between them, turning his options over and over in his head, and exactly how long Pava and Karé will laugh at him regardless of what he chooses. It’s broken by another buzz from the bedroom, and Rey shifts to stand, pushing Poe backwards off her until he flails, landing on Finn, who does nothing other than wrap his arms around Poe’s chest, mindful of the bruises, and just holds him. The difference of this, in between the hold of the duct tape and the bindings that tied him to the chair and the feeling of Kylo Ren choking him with his hand is stark and a little jarring, so Poe buries himself a little further, until Finn presses a kiss to his head, then freezes.

“I… is that okay?” Finn asks, “we haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

“It’s alright,” Poe says, surprised to find that it is. “Yeah, I’m-I’m good.”

Lips smooth over the hair on the palm of his head, and he sinks into the embrace.

Rey reappears in the doorway, juggling his still vibrating phone in her hands, before holding it out to him. The call screen says _Better Driver, Better Lover, Better Heart <3_, which means it’s Jess, so he answers it, staying in Finn’s arms, as Rey sits down again, leaning forward to rub behind BB’s ears.

“Pava?”

 _“Poe? Thank fuck. We thought you’d_ died.”

“I’m okay, Pava.”

_“Debatable, from what I’ve heard. But you’re in D’Qar, right?”_

He frowns. “Pava, why…?”

 _“You haven’t heard?”_ She asks, sounding incredulous.

“I just woke up, Pava,” he says, confused. “What haven’t I heard?”

 _“Stay inside,”_ Jess says firmly, _“and tell that the two other parts of your threesome to stay in too_.”

Poe doesn’t even bother trying to correct her, because he’s starting to feel ill again. “Pava. _Why_ do we have to stay in? Organa wouldn’t tell me either?”

There’s a long sigh, as though Jess were debating whether or not to tell him, before her voice drops to a weirdly emotional whisper. _“The First Order made their move this morning. They just blew up the Hosnian block and killed everyone inside.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone wants any visual reference for bb-8 going down stairs here is an [amazing video of an amazing corgi](http://gretahs.tumblr.com/post/138285830741)
> 
> thanks so much for reading!!
> 
> i have a [tumble](http://gretahs.tumblr.com/)!


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